Jun 6, 2007

House Appropriators Cut Nuke Warhead Funding

By WILLIAM MATTHEWS DefenseNews.com

Exercising “power of the purse,” the U.S. House committee that controls spending voted not to fund any efforts in 2008 to develop a new nuclear warhead.
The House Appropriations Committee cut all of the $88.8 billion President George W. Bush requested for building a Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW).
In a vote June 6, the committee also cut $25 million sought to begin work on a new nuclear weapons production complex — Complex 2030 — which is expected to cost at least $150 billion over the next two decades.
The appropriators withheld funding from the two programs, declaring them, “poorly thought out,” and “premature.” Before building new warheads and a new nuclear weapons complex, the administration must develop a post-Cold War strategic weapons plan, said Rep. Peter Visclosky, D-Ind.
Visclosky is chairman of the Appropriations energy and water subcommittee, which oversees U.S. nuclear weapons programs.
In all, the Appropriations Committee cut $632 million — nearly 10 percent — from Bush’s nuclear weapons budget request of $6.5 billion for 2008.
The money cut from nuclear weapons programs, which are managed by the Energy Department, was distributed to a variety of other energy programs, including programs to reduce dependence on foreign oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The shift prompted Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., to call for nuclear weapons labs in his state to be allowed to branch out into other energy research. Work on energy efficiency and renewable forms of energy “is a direction the nation needs to move in,” he said.
Los Alamos National Laboratory, which manages the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, is the largest employer in Udall’s congressional district. A second national nuclear lab, Sandia, is in southern New Mexico.
Udall predicted the committee’s cuts would lead to job losses. The labs should be allowed to compete for government-funded energy research, he said. “They’re not just weapons labs” and should be permitted to diversify. “I want to make sure the scientists can stay employed,” he said.
However, Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, said for the nuclear labs to become energy science labs would require substantial reorganization.
Committee members made it clear they are unhappy with the Bush administration’s determination to move ahead with the RRW and Complex 2030.
In a strongly-worded rebuke, the committee wrote that “these multi-billion dollar initiatives are being proposed in a policy vacuum without any administration statement on the national security environment that the future nuclear deterrent is designed to address.”
There has been no “definitive analysis or strategic assessment” of a future nuclear stockpile, the committee wrote. “Currently there exists no convincing rationale for maintaining the large number of existing Cold War nuclear weapons, much less producing additional warheads.”
The committee directed the Energy Department, Pentagon and intelligence community to write “a comprehensive nuclear security plan.”
The plan is to cover future weapons requirements, production of new weapons and dismantlement plans for old ones. It is also to include estimates of the global threat, an unclassified summary of the current stockpile quantity, year-by-year changes planned for the size of the stockpile and analysis comparing the cost of existing facilities and the current stockpile with the cost of a new weapons complex.
Committee members accused the Energy Department of seeking new weapons chiefly to bolster its budget. In a bill report the committee wrote: “The committee notes that maintaining the legacy stockpile was acceptable to the Defense Department and the Energy Department while large funding allocations were flowing for the Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship facilities and programs.
“Now that the Stockpile Stewardship facilities are nearing completion and the funding curve is flattening out, NNSA (the National Nuclear Security Administration within the Energy Department) is raising concerns with the reliability of the existing stockpile and wants Congress to embark on a new multi-billion, multi decade initiative that will ensure an expanding funding curve.”
It is also “particularly troubling,” the committee wrote, that the RRW puts the United States in the contradictory position “of demanding other nations give up their nuclear ambitions while the U.S. aggressively pursues a program to build new nuclear warheads.”
Amid the cutting, the committee approved a whopping increase for efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
Members added $11 million to the president’s request for $1.7 billion. On top of that, nonproliferation efforts are to receive $387 million available from prior years and $491 million that is to be transferred from other accounts. In all, that means a 74 percent increase in non-proliferation spending over the current year.
Funded work includes work to secure nuclear weapons and materials in the former Soviet Union and efforts to keep them from being smuggled into the United States.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

What did Mikey just finish telling us? Is he out of the loop or just doesn't get it...No RIF's at LANL is very misleading..Why not come out and tell us the "whole story" No RIF's in June is just plain and simple "politics" The budget is telling another story, why no face the music...does he really think he will be a hero by delaying the news that we will have massive job losses in the very near future...

Anonymous said...

Geee...I wonder why Congress is so upset with LANL? Sounds like they are re-thinking the entire Weapons Complex....Minus LANL..We may not even be missed..hmmm

Anonymous said...

Could this be the beganning of the end for the once famous LANL? Sounds like if Congress cuts only half of what they are requesting, could spell the demise for LANL...and it's former mission...

Anonymous said...

The Lab has been in denial about a whole lot of things lately, not the least being the managerial incompetence, employee abuse and fraudulent behavior in our ranks that has virtually destroyed our institutional reputation. In the mean time the planet is burning up while we keep trying to convince ourselves that we still deserve unspent billions of dollars more to create and support the next generation of new weapons designers; as though our priority at this point in human existence is to ensure we keep the best weapons of mass destruction money can buy in stock. Talk about arranging the chairs on the Titanic!

Anonymous said...

I run a restaurant in Santa Fe and I plan to hire as many unemployed scientists from Los Alamos as I possibly can. Of course I'm assuming they can be trained.

Anonymous said...

8:53 "Restaurant": I assume your restaurant has the typical "appliances", such as an accelerator, fume-hoods, pulse-generators, YAG-lasers, BSL-3 lab space, high-performacne compute-clusters, hot-rooms, metallurgic labs, ...

Anonymous said...

Nope, don't have all that stuff. But can you use a spatula? Are you willing to learn?

Anonymous said...

8:53 am Just how much of your clientele is supported (yes, that dreaded old trickle down economics thing) by LANL? You liberal fools do not understand economics or the even more dangerous reality that without National Security, your business is worthless. Instead of laughing this away, you ought to think long and hard about America without nuclear weapons and the rest of the world with them. Do some Google research; it's pretty scary out there. Maybe your communist friends from Russia are just kidding about all of their new nuclear weapon development. They surely wouldn’t use them on us, we’re friends now. Right? Check it out!

Welcome to America with Democrats in charge. I wonder how they will keep all their SF friends fed without technology in this State? Oh yeah – I forgot, we are going to make it on the film industry. Let’s bring in Hollywood and export LANL. That ought to reduce the IQ of NM by 50%. You liberals have no grasp of reality.

Anonymous said...

5:02 Or maybe the IQ level may be increased by 50% when your types leave....hmmmm

Anonymous said...

9:25 am You are exactly the type who will have problems securing emploment in the real world ALANL (After LANL) ...might want to take the offer while you still can?

Anonymous said...

The only explanation is that Barton, Stupak and Dingle (Bart, Stupid and Dingbat) are secretly funded by North Korea/Iran/China (take your pick). Those countries benefit most from LANL's closure!

Anonymous said...

This 5:02PM's typical day:

"My coffee is cold...damn Democrats!"
"I have constipation...damn liberals."
"I took a laxitive and now I shit in my tutu...damn United Nations!"

Staring at GWs image over his bed at night..."dear GW, now I lay me down to sleep...I pray Pat Roberts my soul to keep..."

Anonymous said...

I just love the boneheads that are cynically waiting for LANL to fold. Certainly no effect on SF should that happen. It's only the biggest employer in northern NM.

Maybe ignorance really is bliss.

Anonymous said...

They will only notice when the property value does down, way down.......then they can blame Bush ask us taxpayers to bail them out.

Anonymous said...

Geez, how can the universe survive if Los Alamos doesn't retain its standing as the nation's wealthiest community? I need a Prozac. Give me a glass of Pu contaminated water to wash it down with...please!

Anonymous said...

You know what, LANL could go away today and really no one would miss it, as for the economic impact, we can recover....we were here before LANL and we be here after LANL....
Hey maybe Bush will Bail us out?. The people who will really hurt are the one's with the high priced and over-priced houses that are their tribute to themselves...Maybe the Native Americans can use them to graze their sheep....

Anonymous said...

12:29 pm
What do propose will be the economic engine of the State?

Anonymous said...

12:29 You are heavily misinformed about the contributions LANL makes to the Nation. Leaving the care and feeding of our nuclear stockpile to LLNL would be a very bad idea. You are either one of Greg Mello's cronies or an LLNL manager.

Anonymous said...

12:29 - without the Lab everyone in northern NM will not be buying a new chevy or ford but a new mule. Just like the old days.

Cool!!

Anonymous said...

If the lab folds, Sen Domenici will figure out how to spend 2.2Billion in northern New Mexico, even if he has to create another welfare Project.......How about a Chili Pu Facility?